


When your whole world is jaded, when your colors are faded (when nothing but your shadow's on your side)

by MYuzuki



Series: No matter what’s in front of me (I’ll keep fighting til I’ve won) [43]
Category: Final Fantasy XV, Kingsglaive
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Ardyn Izunia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:41:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26794549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MYuzuki/pseuds/MYuzuki
Summary: It's been a long time, Ardyn thinks, since he's had cause to view his distant descendants as anything more than nuisances at best and hated enemies at worst.He's vaguely disturbed to realize that sometime in the last few days that's changed.
Relationships: Ardyn Izunia & Everyone
Series: No matter what’s in front of me (I’ll keep fighting til I’ve won) [43]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1897525
Comments: 11
Kudos: 106





	When your whole world is jaded, when your colors are faded (when nothing but your shadow's on your side)

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back, my friends, and sorry for the delay! I was going to post yesterday (to celebrate the fact I completed my essay assignment) but I had to ration out my internet so I could take a 40 point botany quiz this morning without getting shut down halfway through the questions, lol. ;P But anyway, all is well now (and I got the full 40 points?!), so here we are! Enjoy!

**When your whole world is jaded, when your colors are faded (when nothing but your shadow's on your side)**

* * *

It's been a long time, Ardyn thinks, since he's had cause to view his distant descendants as anything more than nuisances at best and hated enemies at worst.

He's vaguely disturbed to realize that sometime in the last few days that's changed.

Even more disturbing is the realization that he can't pinpoint the specific moment when that shift occurred.

Perhaps it was as recent as yesterday, when the current Lucian Crown Prince -Ardyn's mortal enemy according to the gods- had stood up during that ridiculous council session and declared that he would be accompanying the Oracle on her pilgrimage to restore the havens to working order.

Perhaps it was a moment not long before that, when that very same prince had looked at him from across the meeting table with Somnus's face, high cheekbones and a sleek jawline and eyes that shine with youthful determination and a sort of faint uncertainty that Somnus had never shown past the age of twelve. When that prince had _asked for his help_.

( _We would appreciate your insight_ , Noctis Lucis Caelum had said, as if it was perfectly ordinary to ask for advice from someone who had just recently been planning to tear your entire life apart out of misplaced spite and malice.

He can't decide if he's amused by the audacity of it or alarmed by the naivete that such behaviour implies.)

Or perhaps his feelings for the Lucis Caelum bloodline had changed _before_ that meeting. Perhaps it had been that fateful day standing before the Crystal, when the current king and his son and the commander of their Kingsglaive had thrown wave after wave of magic at him to purify him of the Scourge that had been coursing through his veins for the better part of two thousand years.

(It had felt like a fever dream, waking up after that explosion of light and energy. Those shadowy voices that had always whispered and hissed from the edges of his soul, twisting and clawing and yanking at his mind, were _gone_.

Gone, as if they'd never been there at all, leaving only silence and a peculiarly bittersweet sort of emptiness behind.)

Or maybe his perspective had changed even before that. Perhaps it had changed when a Kingsglaive soldier had looked at him without fear, a challenge and a fragile sort of hope in his gaze.

("I'm the idiot who told them to write you a letter," that man had said, and perhaps that was the moment where everything changed.

Perhaps Nyx Ulric was the first domino that set the rest of them tumbling, to the point that even the plans of the gods themselves have been thrown into disarray.)

Whatever the cause, there's no denying that his perspective on the royal family of Lucis (he's very carefully not thinking of them as _his_ family, because two thousand years removed or not that's a wound that's still too fresh, the memory of Somnus's betrayal still too close) has changed.

He's not sure how he feels about it, honestly. He's spent the last few decades patiently plotting and scheming against them, after all, and up until an alternative path had been set before him he'd been bitterly resigned to the one he'd been set on by Bahamut.

It feels strange, to be moving away from the revenge he's spent so long striving towards. Almost like he's lost something, and he _knows_ it's not a healthy reaction to being saved from a hellish existence where the only thing he could look forward to was his own agonizing death at the hands of a boy who looked like his baby brother. He knows that, truly.

But knowing it doesn't change how he _feels_ , and how he feels is…adrift.

So he does what he always does when he's feeling unmoored, and fixes his attention on something interesting, something he can focus his mind on.

After he'd first come out of Angelgard and gone haring off to kill Regis all those years ago only to be thwarted by Bahamut, he'd skulked back to Niflheim and thrown himself headfirst into Verstael Besithia's magitek research as a way to keep himself distracted from the unfairness of his destiny even as he ferociously worked towards his goal of revenge.

Unlike in Niflheim where he'd been a Chancellor, however, he occupies no official position in the Lucian hierarchy (not surprising, considering the fact that he'd been a steadfast enemy of the kingdom until recently) and therefore has no duties or obligations to bury himself in.

So he turns his attention to something else: the mystery of Nyx Ulric.

The Glaive is, as Ardyn himself had said not long ago, something of an enigma. He possesses Lucian magic, and a tremendous amount of it; more than any warrior, even the commander of an elite military force, should possess without royal blood. And then there's the words of the Lucii to factor in, how they had called Nyx an interloper and a thief even as the Glaive had bristled and snarled about how he'd been _given_ the power that he carries.

Of course, there is the fact that Nyx Ulric is, according to all the Insomnian newspapers and the Crown Prince himself, of the Lucis Caelum line. Does have, according to an announcement made by the king himself some time ago, royal blood.

Ardyn isn't so sure, though. Because it all _looks_ very neat and tidy when laid out on paper; a forgotten branch of the family tree appears in the kingdom's time of need, complete with a proclamation from the ruling sovereign himself about a long-lost aunt who had been disowned once upon a time before presumably running off to Galahd and falling in love.

And if one doesn't look too closely, it even makes sense. Certainly the general population of Insomnia seems to believe it, if the gossip he's overheard about the last remaining 'royal bachelor' is anything to go by.

But for Ardyn, who's spent the last several years weaving plots and schemes together while keeping everyone around him ten steps behind the curve, it feels almost _too_ convenient, too neat and tidy of an explanation.

Which, of course, leaves the question of what the _real_ story is.

Ardyn decides that he's going to find out. After all, if the cover story is that Nyx Ulric is of royal blood, than the truth must be _very_ interesting indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I hope you enjoyed the latest bit of Ardyn's perspective! :D The next drabble in the series (which will be posted either tomorrow on Sunday or the day after on Monday) is going to feature some Nyx & Cor so that'll be fun, too. ;D
> 
> In other news, I also just posted my first Prompto-centric drabble [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26794393), for Day 3 of Promptober 2020 (also technically Day 27, but I didn't want to wait til the end of the month to post it, lol) so if you like my writing and you'd like to see me writing about Prompto being awesome, please check it out. <3


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